I was getting a tea at the local tea shop near my office the other day. A colleague came over and told me that he was not seeing new articles from me these days and asked if my frequency of writing had come down. Since I was a bit caught up with the Quarterly Planning that time, I attributed the lack of action to my busy schedule.
Sometime later I was brooding
over the same question from my colleague and started wondering if it was really
the Quarterly Planning that slowed down my frequency of writing. The fact was that
I just did not feel like writing. Now the reasons could be plenty. It could be
attributed to the busy schedule or the ongoing incidents in Middle East or an
increased focus on reading and what not. In any case, I knew that I did not
feel the urge to write and hence I did not.
Days went by, but somehow the
question from my colleague kept haunting me. It was never a case where I had a
dearth of topics about which I wanted to write. As the pressure of inaction
built up, I did sit with my laptop open the other day to write about a topic
which was a part of a series I was writing. It was not an impromptu topic and
hence I had done certain amount of research to come up with the content. I
completed my research and started putting the words together and eventually the
article took shape. As always, I did the proof reading and finally published
the article.
While the mission was
accomplished, I knew something was missing. At the end of every article I
wrote, I felt a pure sense of bliss which motivated me to write more. That
element seemed to be missing this time! To make sure, I asked one of the best
reviewers of my writings, I have right at home, my son. He read the article. Though
a young man of few words, every time after reading one of my writings, he had a
smile on his face, which proved that he loved the article. To my utter dismay, the
smile was missing this time.
I asked him, what was wrong.
His response was quite candid. He said, unlike my usual presentation of a
topic, this one was quite dry and could only be appreciated by people who were genuinely
interested in the topic I wrote. I understood. It very well explained the lack
of happiness I experienced myself, at the end of writing that last piece.
I realized that I wrote the
last article, not because my passion made me write, instead was the result of a
compulsion I felt due to which I let my brain and hand co-ordinate the activity
all the while my heart stayed away from the party. Simply put, it was a
heartless piece of work!
The story is not just about an
article I wrote. Every time we set forth to do something, whether it is a hobby
or something at work, if it is not driven by passion, it will end up as a
monotonous activity. We may end up meeting the objective. But the bigger
question we need to ask ourselves is, did the work give the same amount of
happiness to us as well as the intended consumers? If not, was the effort truly
worth it?
